Does anybody know of a relatively safe solution that could be used to etch ABS for electroplating? As far as I can see, the only options are solutions with high concentrations of chromic or sulphuric acid… both of which are pretty nasty. For anyone who has no idea what I’m talking about, the butadiene can be etched out of ABS to allow the adhesion of a palladium/tin colloid, rendering the surface conductive enough for electroplating of copper, nickel, etc. I think it would be awesome if we could find a moderately safe way to electroplate our 3d prints at home without anything extremely dangerous or expensive conductive ink.
I dont know about plastic but for making plated through holes in PCB’s i use black india ink, and high plating voltage to get it started. once conductivity increases i back off voltage.
plating usually starts by plating copper. I use copper sulphate and sulphuric acid. (battery acid diluted 10:1 works well). use copper as your anode.
nickle plating, use 3:1 water/nickle sulphate with a capful of HCl, nickle anode
im not aware of any other way of doing it, otherwise the plating industry would jump all over it.
Same chemicals. Electroplating is 19th century science Not rocket science.
Another possible path might be vaccuum deposition. But thats way more complex
Yeah I looked at vaccuum plating, it was out of my reach in terms of cost and equipment. I was looking for an etchant for an electroless bath before the complete electroplating of copper. But some more research makes it look like my only options for that are some strong acids. I’ll probably be taking the conductive ink route instead.
There is lightly-conductive ABS filament available, basically it has a substantial amount of graphite powder mixed in. Might be conductive enough to directly plate it.
One idea might be to print perimeters in a conductive filament in a dual extruder printer. I don’t think doing the whole thing in conductive filament would be cost effective though.